An Orthodox friend of mine asks. He answers with this wonderful (to my ears, at any rate) passage:
"But in what manner does Christ perform His work of salvation, and how does He save man? The law of justice condemns to death the sinner, who through sin forfeits his right to live, which was given to him on condition that he would live and act in accordance with the divine will. Every transgression and disobedience, says St. Paul (Heb. 2:2), is recompensed after a judicial trial. And again he says: "Whosoever hath broken a law of Moses dieth without pity on the testimony of two or three witnesses" (Heb. 10:28). Adam and Eve died as a result of being punished by the Creator because they failed to live in accordance with His commandment. Moreover, none of the men descended from them are exempt from condemnation to death, because they have a natural tendency to sin and readily commit sins during their lives. But when in behalf of the sinner the new man dies voluntarily, who is by nature and by choice sinless; when Christ out of love for the repentant sinner surrenders Himself to voluntary death, a righteous man in behalf of the unrighteous men, then the satisfaction of divine justice becomes complete; moreover, even God's goodness, which seeks to treat men with mercy but without setting aside God's justice, which punishes sin, is satisfied too, and thus comes to exercise it's own function, by treating the sinner mercifully and saving him through the grace of Christ, who died voluntarily in the place of sinners. Thus the death of Christ becomes a means whereby the two prominent qualities of God, His righteousness and His goodness, come to equilibrium, neither of them being disregarded, but both of them, on the contrary, coinciding wonderfully."--Three Great Friday Sermons And Other Theological Discourses By Apostolos Makrakis (1831-1905). page 39. published by The Orthodox Christian Educational Society 1956 Henderson Street Chicago IL.
229 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 229 of 229Perry,
1. The passages you do not find persuasive on the filioque have been found persuasive by the majority of Christians across time, no? The Spirit is the Spirit "of His Son" which the Father sends into our hearts. Thus even in the liturgy of the West even in the time of the undivided Church, the Quinqunque Vult rang out with its confession: "the Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." This is part of the West's lex orandi (Prime), and clearly the "of the Son" is lifted from Galatians 4.
It is most odd that you rule out arguing from the economic to the theologic on John 20, when I have many times heard Orthodox friends argue from it on Matthew 3, saying that the Baptism of our Lord expresses the nature of the inner Trinitarian relations: the Spirit coming from the Father and resting upon the Son. Why is it okay in Matthew 3, but not in John 20?
And you know that St. Augustine and the West has never operated with the conclusion of the Spirit proceeding from Himself.
I'm not sure what you mean about nature being fundamentally alien to God; I mean, you do teach that there is a distinction between creature and Creator, no? The question is whether or not Scripture teaches that our righteousness is what inheres in us or whether our righteousness is Christ Himself. St. Paul says that he knows that in him, that is in his flesh, "no good thing dwells." He also says that Jesus Christ "is MADE unto us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption." It is as our brother in the flesh that our Lord accomplishes a perfect obedience to the Law of God - a perfect life of love, as we sing in one of our hymns - and God sets this before us as our righteousness, gives it to us as our righteousness. But it is always the obedience and work of Him who is both God and Man, thus a flawless human obedience of an infinite worth.
Can you put into ordinary English what you mean by "isomorphic"? Same shaped? What are you talking about???
MG,
The difference is when the Judge is Himself God. Remember that the metaphor breaks down precisely at the point that His speaking ACCOMPLISHES what He says!
Weedon,
If by the majority of Christians across time you mean to exclude all the Eastern apostolic sees and Rome up till 1014, then yes. But Rome is the only see to ever teach it and that was after over three hundred years of opposition to it. Some how that doesn’t seem like the majority of Christians across time. And second, the majority of Christians demonstratably didn’t hold to Sola Fide and other Protestant distinctives either. Do you wish to admit those as well? Why is it that this argument doesn’t wash when used against Luther but when Luther is found to be teaching an unscriptural doctrine in line with Rome it somehow becomes legitimate?
I am not sure how finding it persuasive amounts to a demonstration that it is derived from Scripture alone. You seem to be appealing to some kind of tradition rather than Scripture to support the doctrine or no? Again, where is Sola Scriptura? It doesn’t matter if the doctrine is a tradition on your view if it is contrary to or not ultimately derived from Scripture. If Rome can be wrong for a thousand years on justification, why can’t the Reformers be wrong on the Trinity for 500 years?
The Spirit is the Spirit of truth too. Does the person of the Spirit proceed from the divine property of truth? This entire line of reasoning was refuted by the Cappadocians against Eunomius. There is no intervening relation between the divine persons. Secondly, I grant that there is an economic sending and I grant that there is an energetic procession in eternity, but how we get from those two to a hypostatic generation is beyond me. If the person of the Spirit is generated from the economic sending, then the Spirit isn’t God. This is a product of Platonism as can be seen in Plotinus’ Enneads on the procession of Psuche or the world Spirit from the One and Nous jointly. This was so that there would be logical reciprocity and a basis for philosophical unity and distinction. Three is the least number where one can have unity and difference-2 being the same and 1 different. It was also so that there would be a logical space for every place in a causal theory-an uncaused cause, a caused cause and a caused effect that is no cause which was then the basis for Aristotle’s square of opposition-All S are P, No S are P, Some S are P, etc.
Weedon, (con.t)
The Athanasian Creed is not Athanasian and not really a creed. It’s a later Frankish creed that never was accepted by the whole church, ever. Remember even Rome opposed the Filioque until 1014, which includes opposing the phrase in the Athanasian Creed. This can be seen in Pope John 8th putting up two shields in Rome with the Nicene Creed etched on it in the 9th century, one in Latin and the other in Greek without the Filioque. Ironically they are still in Rome today. Even earlier John of Damascus denies explicitly that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, and even earlier than that, so does Maximus.
If you wish to include the lex ordandi, then you’ll have to include congruous merit too as a legitimate theological expression. Again, none of this is a demonstration from Scripture alone-how do you get from the grammar of the text that the Person of the Spirit is generated from the Father and the Son as from one principle? And even if the phrase is lifted from Gal 4 the meaning of Gal 4 is contrary to it making the use of the phrase contrary to the meaning of Scripture. Do you think it permissible for Creeds to use Scriptural phrases contrary to their Scriptural meaning?
I can’t be held responsible for what other Orthodox say anymore than you can be so for what other Lutherans say. I don’t argue from the economia in the baptism of Christ to the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father alone. I don’t need too since Jesus says that he proceeds from the Father, full stop. Knowing that already I can see why people would then see in the economia of the baptism an eternal relationship. Secondly, you need to be clear, eternal doesn’t necessarily imply hypostatic generation. This is why the Eastern Fathers speak of an eternal manifestation or eternal energetic procession through the Son. Of isn’t necessarily co-extensive with from.”
I didn’t claim Augustine thought the Spirit proceeded from himself, but please explain to me how that isn’t the logical conclusion of the argument you gave from John? If taking what is his (the Son’s) refers to essence, then the Spirit having the same essence will generated himself, which is absurd.
Weedon, (cont.)
Of course I think there is a distinction between God and creatures, but we differ on what that distinction is. My thinking was that the only reason why our nature couldn’t contribute was if there was a radical opposition between our nature and the divine. A distinction between the two won’t be sufficient for that conclusion, which is why on your view it seems that there is some kind of radical opposition between God and creatures. This was the whole point of asking if there were two energies and two different objects of choice relative to them in Christ or only one.
I don’t see why it can’t be both our righteousness that inheres in us and Christ himself. Why think that the two are opposed, especially if the logos of our nature is eternally in the one Logos that is Christ? His is the image in which we are made. Why can’t it be both?
If Paul means that in our flesh no good thing dwells that nature is evil per se, then obviously Jesus can’t be consubstantial with us. Obviously it must mean something else. It means that of ourselves apart from divine power there is nothing to please God prior to regeneration, but it does not mean that nature per se is evil, as Gerhard himself says. Otheriwse you’d be committed to saying that either the imago dei is lost at the fall or that it is evil. Without faith it is impossible to please God, but with faith it is possible to please him. Apart from him we can do nothing, in Christ we can do all things because he *strengthens* us.
Sure Jesus was made wisdom, righteousness, how does it follow that the wisdom, righteousness, etc. were made? If I am made glorious with the divine glory, does it mean then that God’s glory is a creature? The renovation of the humanity in Christ doesn’t imply that the righteousness was created.
Isomorphic, meaning the same, one maps the other-if between two concepts there is a conceptual isomorphism then there is an identical intensional content or meaning. Capiche?
Pr Weedon--
You wrote:
"The difference is when the Judge is Himself God. Remember that the metaphor breaks down precisely at the point that His speaking ACCOMPLISHES what He says!"
But even if a person becomes righteous subsequently, the declaration of justification is still not based on reality. It is still false that when God declares about a Christian "you are righteous now", He does so on the basis of a reality inhering in the Christian. My analogy about rehab was meant to illustrate this precise point: just because the judge's judgment is correct *subsequent to the time at which the judgment is made* does not mean that the judge's judgment is true. It is indeed false at the time the judgment is made.
Athanasios--
Before I respond to your points, I have a question.
You wrote:
"A just judge justly punishes one who is guilty of wrong doing; and if he does not punish him he is himself a wrongdoer. In punishing him the judge is not the cause either of the wrongdoing or of the vengence taken against the wrongdoer, the cause being the wrongdoer's freely chosen actions. Thus to God, Who saw what was going to happen as if it had already happened, judged it as if it had taken place; and if it was evil, that was the cause of it's being punished. It was God Who created man, so of course He created him in goodness; but man did evil of his own choice, and is himself the cause of the vengence that overtakes him."
I am curious where this John of Damascus quote can be found. I located the other ones in On the Orthodox Faith. But I can't find this one; where is it from?
Perry,
I didn't call it the Athanasian Creed, and no one but no one holds that was written by Athanasius - but it certainly expresses his teaching! But that does not alter the fact that it is indeed a piece of the lex credendi of the Western Church in the days of the undivided Church. It clearly depends upon Augustine's triadology which also shows up in hymnody from the same period.
I bring the lex orandi up not because I believe that error cannot creep into the church's liturgy, but because there was a time when East and West were in complete intercommunion and the West was still praying and singing the content of the filioque not only in the Nicene Creed but in other parts of her liturgy as well. For myself, I agree with Hermann Sasse that false doctrine first shows up in the liturgy - it is prayed before it is defined. And I might note that Western Rite Orthodox must agree with this assessment since they alter the liturgy of St. Gregory to strip it of that meritorious language and insert in it - quite inorganically - an epiclesis borrowed from Eastern liturgy.
YOU say that they didn't teach sola fide; I say that's hogwash, but you won't credit a single passage that shows differently than you have already determined. No point chasing our tails around that one again...
As to appealing to tradition, OF COURSE I appeal to tradition. Sola Scriptura for a Lutheran means what we confess in the Smalcald Articles: "The Word of God alone establishes articles of faith." That in no way discounts or ignores the Church's centuries of reflection upon that Word of God. It simply grants that whatever we teach as the divinely revealed dogma of the Church must be grounded in the Sacred Scriptures. The Western Church would never have received St. Augustine's triadology if we had not held that it was correctly teaching what God has revealed in the Sacred Scriptures.
On John 16, If "all that the Father has is mine" then spiration is given also to the Son *as part of His being begotten of the Father.* Look, didn't St. Maximos the Great agree that the filioque in the West meant the same thing as saying "through" or what Lossky called "an eternal manifestation from the Son" or some such? The Father gives to the Son everything that is His EXCEPT for being Father - that would include spiration, and thus we can see with St. Augustine the Holy Spirit as that essential, personal Love and Joy that forever passes between the Father and the Son - his great "aha" into the fact that through the Holy Spirit "the love of God" is poured into our hearts.
We aren't going to solve the East/West differences on filioque on a blog - that's for sure.
Perry,
One last thing - I think - it's hard to read back and forth on this thread - the reason why our nature's participation has to be excluded is that we believe Scripture teaches that WE are excluded from the act of justification. It is God's action resting on Christ and not on us. That's the force of the exclusive particles. So even though the renewal always comes with justification, the renewal is the result rather than the cause of the justification. The cause of the justification, its basis, will always be the God-Man and His holy, flawless obedience in our flesh to His Father.
When St. Paul said that nothing good dwelt in his flesh, he was obviously not denying that humanity is a good creation of the good God. He was speaking of the corruption of that good creation which sin has wrought - a corruption that is not limited to the physical alone, but that affects mind and volition and desire and every aspect of our being. The corruption is total in the sense that it affects us entirely. Our Lord shares the exact same flesh as we do, but His is without any corruption at all. He was exactly analogous in His human nature to Adam before the Fall; hence the title New Adam in St. Paul.
MG,
If this Judge declares it to be so, then who are we to argue? Scripture does not teach that He justifies the formerly ungodly; it simply says, the ungodly. And His declaration of just - fully grounded on the basis of the Ransom and Offering of the Son - IS just and makes just. "It is God who justifies us? Who is to condemn?" No one. No one can answer back this Judge. Surely Job is clear on that.
Please permit my brief question. With all the talk of God as judge who sends His Son, etc...
How do Lutherans interpret the scriptures then which teach that it is the Son, slain unjustly, who is now the judge?
Weedon,
I simply used the common designation. In any case, it’s a non-universally accepted statement. And no, the theology per se is more Augustinian than Athanasian as any scholarly evaluation will judge. You seem to admit as much when you note that it depends on Augustine’s triadology. And Athanasius doesn’t teach the Filioque.
Secondly, you confuse it being written in the west with it being the lex credendi of the Western church per se, but this is not so and not so until much later. It wasn’t being used in Rome the principle see of the West in any official or widespread way prior to the schism. The first major use of the Filioque was an imposition by Charlamagne in a bid to convict the East emperor of heresy. And that’s not till the late 8th century.
Complete intercommunion doesn’timply that the Filioque was accepted since during that time it was not accepted by any of the apostolic sees. In fact, Rome rejected it in 880 A.D. and condemned its addition along with the East. That is the faith of the church prior to the schism. It wasn’t either on the radar of the East or when it did pop up it was considered a matter for the bishop of Rome to deal with since it was in his jurisdiction. It wasn’t until it was adopted by the see of Rome after the 880 synod that it became an issue between the sees.
So no, the entire west was not praying and singing the Filioque. Charlamange’s chapel was, some churches in Spain but Rome opposed it and would not permit its use. So contrary to your claim there was no universal usage or anything like in the west. Second, none of that is a demonstration from Scripture of a major doctrine that the Lutherans profess adherence to.
The matters with the western rite is irrelevant . The western rite is only used by the Antiochians. And second, the earlier wesern liturgies did have an epiclesis. Third, if its necessary, then its necessary.
Sure I say it, but so do Protestant scholars in historical theology. From Alcuin to Scotus, who taught Sola Fide? Augustine surely didn’t and Luther admits he didn’t as well as admitting that Chrysostom didn’t either. I don’t credit a single passage that shows differently because you haven’t given a demonstration that any given passage in fact teaches the idea. At best you’ve got sola gratia, but I already believe that and so does Rome.
If you are appealing to tradition, the tradition is only legitimate if it is scriptural. It clearly isn’t and this is manifest by your inability and the inability of contemporary Protestant exegetes to derive the teaching from the text without introducing philosophical assumptions which cannot themselves be grounded in the text of Scripture.
But you view the western church to be in error on a whole host of doctrines they received before and after the schism so the idea that they never would have received it had it not been correct doesn’t wash. They received Augustine’s teaching that we participate syngeristically de congruo in our justification too, not to mention lots other things Lutherans object to. And it doesn’t follow that if they thought it was scriptural that it was in fact so. Second, Augustine himself doesn’t teach it dogmatically but treats it as speculative. It only gains doctrinal standing until much later. And that was due to Charlamange and/or the fact that the Franks thought it was part of the original as was the case with Cardinal Humbert in 1054 A.D. As Lutherans like to point out, the church is fallible and so I don’t see why Lutherans don’t admit that this is another instance of that fallibility.
So if the dogma of your church must be grounded in the Scriptures, where is this teaching in the Scriptures? Where is it exegeted from the text?
On John 16, If "all that the Father has is mine" then spiration is given also to the Son *as part of His being begotten of the Father.* Look, didn't St. Maximos the Great agree that the filioque in the West meant the same thing as saying "through" or what Lossky called "an eternal manifestation from the Son" or some such? The Father gives to the Son everything that is His EXCEPT for being Father - that would include spiration, and thus we can see with St. Augustine the Holy Spirit as that essential, personal Love and Joy that forever passes between the Father and the Son - his great "aha" into the fact that through the Holy Spirit "the love of God" is poured into our hearts.
We aren't going to solve the East/West differences on filioque on a blog - that's for sure.
Opps, try this
Weedon,
First, the gloss on John 16 isn’t exegetically derived. There is nothing in the grammar to license this conclusion. Second, it doesn’t follow since what distinguishes the Father is that he is the cause or arche or source. The Son is not source on pain of being the person of the Father. Third, the context is teaching, not hypostatic existence.
Maximus does say that at that time the west held to an eternal manifestation but he explicitly denies that it was taught by them as hypostatic generation from the Son. So Maximus can’t be of help to you there. It is just ore evidence that the Filioque was not the faith of the West. Second, the Florentine doctrine which the Lutherans accept says that the energetic procession just is the hypostatic generation, but that is not what the East has maintained from the get go. The West simply lacked the doctrine of energies as a third place between the hypostatic and the economical. This is why at Florence when the Orthodox began talking about the energies, the Latin’s didn’t even know what they were talking about.
Augustine’s notion of the Trinity built on psychological models owes its impetus and structure to late Platonism, where the Psuche is the end and returning point of the One through Nous to itself and so completes the logical circle. This is the philosophical grid that Augustine brings to the text and why for example he held to the existence of a universal spirit or soul that animated all living things that was not the Holy Spirit till his dying day, even though he admitted it couldn’t be found in Scripture or tradition.
I am not asking you to solve the differences between the Orthodox and the Latins. You keep charging the Orthodox with theological errors of various types. Now I am asking you on your own principles of Scripture alone to justify one of your own doctrines. I don’t care about your tradition since I believe it contradicts the Word of God. If you claim that your dogmas can be justified by Scripture alone, then please give me a demonstration. Otherwise, your position like that of the Reformed is internally inconsistent between two major areas of theology-the Filioquist Trinity and Sola Scriptura. So you can adhere to one or the other, but not both.
Weedon,
I think Scripture teaches that we as a principle source of our own are excluded as a source, and that I think is all that is required to maintain sola gratia. It’s being God’s action resting on Christ would only exclude us if we aren’t in Christ. If we are, then as Augustine said, Christ and his body make up one whole Christ.
The question isn’t the force of the exclusive particles, but their range. I see no reason why in Christ we can’t be included in it.
As for the cause of justification, this will depend on what kind of cause you have in mind. Surely it isn’t the efficient cause, but why not the formal or a material cause?
Our corruption I don’t think excludes the good that is congruously produced in us from being good, lest sanctification be empty in name. Granted it is not quantitatively complete, but it is qualitatively so.
And I am not sure you want to say that the humanity of Christ is exactly analogous to Adam’s prior to the fall unless you wish to claim that his flesh was already holy prior to any merit he earned given the Lutheran view that righteousness was a constituent of the imago dei prior to the fall. If this were so, it makes it hard to see Christ recapitulating much of anything.
Everyone grants that the fall affects us across the board, but that is not controversial. What is, is the idea that the imago dei is altered in some way. If it could be altered by human choices then human nature would be different for everyone for everyone wills differently and differently things.
NP,
Of course Christ will be our final judge: "from whence He will come to judge the living and the dead." Nevertheless, the One who will be our judge is also He who was "put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification." If you are interested in getting a handle on how Lutherans teach about the judgment and the intersection with justification, see Edward Preuss' little volume *Justification of the Sinner Before God* - "We shall be declared just according to works but not on account of works; for the works are not the basis of the divine judgment, but the visible testimony that this judgment is just."
Perry,
I think you mistake the pope's rejection of altering the Creed with an objection to the doctrine that was included in the alteration. Rome has never insisted that the Creed must be said with the filioque has it? Do not Byzantine Catholics to this day say the Nicene Creed in its original form? And yet they are under the Roman obedience. Rome only insists that the teaching contained in the filioque not be denied, for "from the Father" is not the same thing as "from the Father alone."
Our Church holds that it is rightly exegeted from the texts in the manner I HAVE shown. It is implied in the "Spirit of the Son;" it is implied in the economic sending from the Son; it is implied in the fact that our Blessed Lord teaches that all that the Father has is given to the Son (save for being Father). In light of those considerations, our Church receives the phrase in the Creed as it was handed down to us as a true confession, wholly consonant with the Sacred Scriptures. Obviously you don't; could be why you're Orthodox and why I'm Lutheran...
Perry,
You say that I cannot hold to Sola Scriptura and to the Filioque. But you're in error for the simple fact is that I DO hold to both, and I hold that Scriptures the West has EVER adduced to demonstrate this doctrine are sufficient to show it. So does the entire Lutheran Church! It is part of the tradition we have received and to quote Dr. Luther (on a different subject): "I've not been persuaded by any Scripture that it is wrong."
Weedon,
At the time of the 880 council, it was anathematized. http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/constantinople-iv-879880-catholic-and-protestant-historical-amnesia/
Some Eastern Rite Catholics right now do not have to say it, but others do. Rome can change this and has done so in the past. They are all professed to teach it and profess it.
http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/an-imposition/
If from the Father is not equivalent to from the Father alone, then begotten of the Father isn’t equivalent to begotten from the Father alone so that the Spirit can be said to be a participant in the eternal begetting of the Son. The same logic for the Filioque supports and licenses the Spirituque.
Again, this is not a demonstration from the exegesis of Scripture alone. Its more philosophical theology.
And is saved by faith equivalent to saved by faith alone?
Well I haven’t seen an exegesis from you. There is no treatment of the grammar and the rules of inference on how we get from A to B. If it is implied from the “of” = “from” then the Spirit is also from the divine “attribute” of truth too.
So you receive the Creed as a tradition. Got it. Second, you receive the creed as it was unilaterally changed by the Pope and is then used to justify the Pope’s universal authority since the Spirit proceeds then into the church from the vicar of the Son, the Pope. How ironic. You’d think this changing of the doctrine of the Trinity unilaterally by the Pope would be something Protestants would protest against. The fact that they don’t shows how much the true sons of Rome they still are. I don’t mean to be rude, but you just pretty much admitted its accepted as a tradition and you aren’t going to budge. So much for semper reformada and this shows that that is just a slogan and nothing more.
And I am at a loss how simply saying that you received it, hold to it, so judge it to be etc. amounts to a demonstration that it is derived from Scripture, especially when I have demonstrated how the inferences you draw are not truth preserving and how I have demonstrated that it was not the universal faith of the west until very late and post schism.
I said you can’t consistently hold to both as I demonstrated. People are free to be irrational though. Simply noting that you hold to both is not a demonstration that you consistently do so. The fact that you judge the scriptures to prove it is not a demonstration that they do so. And the Lutheran church is fallible by your own admission, so I can’t see how we get from, the fallible Lutheran church judges X, to, X is true. I agree its part of your tradition, by which the Word of God is made of none effect.
Lutherans speak of the imago dei being absolutely lost only when the imago is defined as the holiness and righteousness in which the first man and woman were originally created (not excluding that they were capable of maturing in that holiness and righteousness).
When we say that we have lost the image of God, we mean that apart from the operation of divine grace, our wills are not in conformity with the Divine will but in fact opposed to it.
With the genes there is a mono, no? Christ is monogenes. Hence, the unique, the one and only.
Perry,
The creed with the filioque, as you admitted, did not come from Rome; it came TO Rome, and it was resisted for some time. But it finally prevailed. It hardly seems a good hat to hang your anti-papal words on as though the filioque is accepted in the West due to the insistence of the Bishop of Rome; the history is the reverse. He finally agreed to it, but it was already being used.
Perry,
The fact that you hold that the West's understanding of the Scriptural basis of the filioque is not convincing is not surprising. But it doesn't in any way make it irrational. Here's a gift aha: what doesn't make sense to you MIGHT just MIGHT make sense to someone else who doesn't have the same philosophical straight jacket on.
Yeah, I know, another assertion
Now, let me be clear: I have NEVER gone to any Eastern Orthodox blog or website and mocked them with being irrational idolators of Mary or whatever. I've never insisted they demonstrate FROM SCRIPTURE how they can be stupid enough to hold to X or Y.
You are simply out of place to come on this site and behave the way you have behaved. You are welcome to participate here if you can show a modicum of courtesy (look at the other Orthodox participants for an example!). Your theosis needs a bit of work; right now you're being a very poor witness to Orthodoxy, let alone to Christianity.
In simplest terms: do you know the difference between: "I am not convinced by that line of argument, Pastor Weedon" and "Weedon, you are free to be irrational"? I'm not sure you do.
P.S. My last post on this thread for a while. I've got company coming in and need to help my wife with dinner.
Weedon,
Sure, Christ is only begotten of the Father, that doesn’t exclude the Spirit participating in the begetting anymore than on Filioquist logic the Son’s participation in the cause of the Spirit compromises the Father as the arche in the Trinity. Only begotten from the Father isn’t equivalent to that only the Father does the begetting.
Yes the Filioque prevailed in Rome after the Franks elected one of their own finally to the papal throne. Second, indulgences and lots of other things prevailed in Rome so it doesn’t follow that because it prevailed in Rome it was true, unless you admit that the Pope is the vicar of Christ, which would be an odd thing for a Lutheran to do. After some time?! More than three hundred years of resistance with conciliar condemnation between east and west is no small thing.
And sure, it was being used because of Charlamange’s order to insert it for political gain and his court theologians editing the texts so that successive generations thought it was part of the original creed. On your own principles acceptance by Rome is not a sufficient or a necessary condition to show a doctrine’s truth its grounding in Scripture. So this can’t be relevant.
I didn’t argue that my simply not finding it persuasive was grounds for thinking it was not grounded in Scripture. My argument was, to the contrary, that because I had given demonstrations that the inferences you gave were not truth preserving that it wasn’t so grounded. The beauty of logical inferences is that they don’t depend on what seems to make sense to different people or not. They are not person relative. Nor do they depend on one’s philosophical or theological persuasion, though some premises might. What premises of mine do you find objectionable?
Weedon,
True enough you have not gone to my blog or others to attack or criticize the Orthodox Church. But you have fairly consistently attacked the Orthodox position on your own blog with the implication that Orthodox theology is lacking in truth, justification, etc., even to go so far as to cite sources which probably didn’t mean what you claimed, which is then verified when those sources appear here to say so.
As for the “irrational” remark, let me be clear. You cited Scripture but with no grammatical exegesis or at least none that I can recall. You gave a few cursory arguments/remarks for understanding those passages as supporting the filioque. I demonstrated how given the concept expressed one could not reach the conclusion, or at least not without supplying other non-biblical philosophical assumptions. Then you appealed to tradition, and I showed that not only was it not the tradition of the west, a la Maximus and Roman resistance to it, but that your factual claims were in error-Maximus for example never taught that the energetic procession through the Son was the same as the Hypostatic generation. Then still lacking any attempt to give an exegetical basis for the doctrine, I posed a dilemma that since it could not be grounded on Scripture alone, that one could choose between Sola Scriptura or a Filioquist Trinity since one could not consistently adhere to both.
Your response to this was to just reassert your tradition’s understanding of the passage and maintain that you did in fact maintain both. Now when a dilemma is posed, it is customary to engage it in a few possible ways. Either take one horn or the other, or put forward a tertium quid, a third option showing how both horns can be avoided. Reasserting the two positions is non-engagement of the argument. It signals that the listener has not grasped the argument.
Now added to the previous non-engagements in my demonstrations that the inferences were not truth preserving or led to absurdities, when someone simply reasserts their position in the face of an obvious problem, that is fist pounding and is an irrational response. I didn’t say you were stupid or anything of the kind. But you seem to require and solicit a certain level of rational engagement from the Orthodox you criticize. I am holding you to that standard. It’s a matter of logic and nothing personal.
Comments regarding my theosis or lack thereof are irrelevant to the argument. If my arguments are good, then they are good regardless of my bad behavior, as was the case with Luther and his bad behavior.
I am quite aware of the difference between not being convinced and being irrational. I am also aware of the difference of persuasion and logical validity and soundness. I am also aware of the difference between a reasoned response that attempts to show why the criticism isn’t legitimate and one that just reasserts the position as if no criticism has been made.
My point was in the face of a refusal to engage the actual arguments and to just reassert your tradition without any support that the reason game had stopped being played. If you wish to show why you are not convinced and why my arguments are bad ones, please let us continue, but reasserting your tradition without support in the face of critiques isn’t a reasoned or rational response. I freely grant I tossed back some Reformation rhetoric your way regarding Rome because I wanted you to feel and see what its like to be on that end of the stick since Lutherans cast us in with Rome. That said, if those kinds of remarks are not legitimate then certainly most of your coreligionists are certainly wrong about Orthodoxy.
Final words on this thread, and then I'm closing it:
I'd invite any reader of the blog to compare my words regarding Orthodoxy with Perry's description of them and see if his evaluation holds water. I make no bones about the areas where Lutherans disagree with the Orthodox, that is true. But I do not believe I am guilty of "consistently attacking the Orthodox position" on anything.
I cited Fr. Steven's words because I believed (in error apparently) that he meant what the words said. I have invited him privately to explain to me how they could be understood in another way for I am at a loss to know how to "hear" them other than exactly as they stand. I've not heard from him yet, but hope I will.
Perry noted that the genitive "Spirit of His Son" was a parallel to "Spirit of truth" from John 15. I want to point out that I agree. And in John 14, the Truth speaks to tell us what truth is: "I am the way, THE TRUTH, and the life." Same discourse. Our Lord is the Truth and so the Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of our Lord, that is, the Spirit who proceeds from Him.
Finally, my apologies to Athanasios for letting this thing get so far off track. He raised some very interesting points from Vladimir Moss and they have gone unanswered. I think they deserve an answer. But I'd invite the Orthodox to take the discussion to one of their blogs and have it there.
Post a Comment